The latest Bitcoin Core update, v30, released on October 12, established itself as one of the two client versions most used by Bitcoin nodes.
At the end of October, CriptoNoticias reported that the adoption of that edition had advanced rapidly. That advance intensified.
On November 11, mempool.space developer mononautical shared an X image showing that, at the time, Core v30 was the most used software.
It registered 2,509 nodes, 10.66% of the total. Core v28 followed closely, with 2,507 nodes, 10.65%.
However, those figures have changed slightly since that publication. At the close of this article, Core v28 leads the list with 2,397 nodes, equivalent to 10.70%.
Next, version 30 with 2,348 nodes, 10.48% and Core v29, with 1,904 nodes (8.50%). In total, there are around 23,000 Bitcoin node brokers.
Context of the rise of Core v30 on Bitcoin nodes
The growth of Core v30 occurs in a scenario marked by a technical and philosophical dispute between developers and ecosystem collaborators.
This conflict centers on how to define which features Bitcoin customers should prioritize.
Specifically, some participants consider that the latest Core update enables use that increases spam. This term is used to describe transactions that do not have a monetary purpose.
The criticism arises because Core v30 expanded the field to 100,000 bytes available for registration through the opcode OP_RETURN. This field allows data to be included in transactions and, according to its detractors, facilitates the growth of the network file with non-financial content.
Additionally, that dispute led to an anonymous developer proposing a soft fork for curb non-monetary data storage in Bitcoin.
From the Core development area they maintained that the design respects freedom and autonomy of those who operate nodes to decide how they interact with Bitcoin. For them, this autonomy is a way to preserve the network and its decentralized design.